News briefs: Afghan mass shooting

Deep South primaries

March 13, 2012

Militants attack Afghan government delegation visiting site of deadly US shooting spree

BALANDI, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban militants opened fire Tuesday on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a U.S. soldier is suspected of killing 16 civilians.

The gunfire killed an Afghan soldier who was providing security for the delegation in Balandi village, said Gen. Abdul Razaq, the police chief for Kandahar province where the visit took place. Another Afghan soldier and a military prosecutor were wounded in the attack, he said.

The delegation, which included two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers and other senior officials, was holding a memorial service in a mosque for the civilians killed Sunday when the shooting started.

One of the president's brothers, Qayum Karzai, said the attack didn't seem serious to him.

"We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots," said Karzai. "Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air."

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Deep South primaries in Alabama and Mississippi could clarify GOP presidential contest

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Mitt Romney is working to seal his status as the Republican presidential front-runner with a thus-far-elusive victory in the Deep South.

Closely fought primaries in Alabama and Louisiana offer the former Massachusetts governor a key opportunity in a region that has been slow to embrace him. Tuesday's primaries are also poised to render a possible final verdict on Newt Gingrich's Southern-focused candidacy.

With polls showing an unexpectedly tight race in the conservative bellwether states, Romney made a campaign appearance Monday in Alabama — a clear indication he was eyeing a potential win there.

Romney campaigned with Southern comedian Jeff Foxworthy and poked fun at his own lack of hunting skills, saying he hoped to set out with an Alabama friend who "can actually show me which end of the rifle to point."

Battling anew to be Romney's main conservative challenger, Gingrich and Rick Santorum both spoke at an energy forum in Mississippi and took questions on religion in public life at a presidential forum in Birmingham, Ala. They took sharp aim at President Barack Obama, with Santorum labeling the president's foreign policy "pathetic" and Gingrich taunting Obama as "President Algae" for an energy speech in which Obama spoke of research that would allow oil and gas to be developed from algae one day.

Analysis: White House race jolted by events outside Obama's control

WASHINGTON (AP) — This is the economy election, right? Tell that to the world.

President Barack Obama is getting another dose of the reality of his job: the out-of-his-control events that shape whether he will keep it.

He is lobbying Israel not to launch on attack on Iran that could set the Middle East on fire and pull the United States into another war. He is struggling to get world powers to unite on halting a massacre in Syria. He is on the defensive about staying in Afghanistan after a U.S. soldier allegedly went on a killing spree against civilians.

And back home, where the economy is king, everyone is talking about the price of gasoline. Which, as Obama can't say enough, no one can control right now.

The Republican presidential candidates don't have to worry as much about all this because they don't have the responsibility of governing — a luxury Obama likes to note, although he enjoyed the same when he was the challenger. The Republicans, though, are being drawn into events beyond their preferred message of the day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the Federal Reserve's policymakers last met in January, the job market has shown more muscle. Employers have hired more than a half million people. The unemployment rate is down.

The core issue the policymakers face when they meet Tuesday is whether that burst of strength will last long enough for them to soon scale back their support for the economy.

No major announcements are expected after the Fed's one-day meeting. Private economists think the officials will note the job gains. But they expect them to repeat their plan to keep short-term interest rates at a record low until at least late 2014.

Those low rates are intended to encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. Lower yields also lead some investors to shift money out of bonds and into stocks.